Forward, NY
Oct 21 2004
Church Flap In Jerusalem: Bad Blood – And Saliva
By Eric J. Greenberg
October 22, 2004
It has been Jerusalem’s dirty little secret for decades: Orthodox
yeshiva students and other Jewish residents vandalizing churches and
spitting on Christian clergyman as they walk along the narrow,
ancient stone streets of the Old City.
Now, however, following a highly publicized fracas last week between
a yeshiva student and the archbishop of Jerusalem’s Armenian Church,
the issue is generating unprecedented media attention in Israel. The
fight started after a yeshiva student at the respected Har Hamor
yeshiva spat on Archbishop Nourhan Manougian during a Christian holy
procession in the Old City.
In the wake of the incident, a top Armenian Church official told the
Forward that his church is calling on the Israeli government and on
rabbis around the world to help put a stop to the offensive,
decades-long abuse.
“These ultra-Orthodox Jews are the ones causing this scandal, those
that live here in our neighborhood and the ones that come visit the
Western Wall,” said the church official, Aris Shirvanian, in a phone
interview Monday. He spoke from the patriarchate’s world headquarters
in the Armenian Quarter, one of the famed four quarters of the Old
City of Jerusalem.
“We would like to see the authorities… become more strict with the
offenders,” said Shirvanian, director of ecumenical and foreign
relations of the Armenian Patriarchate. “We would also ask rabbis to
get involved in educating this one sector of the Jewish society.”
Har Hamor is one of the leading institutions of religious Zionism,
Israel’s equivalent of Modern Orthodoxy. Most sources interviewed for
this article suggested that the abusive practices were more common in
the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi community, which is characterized by
greater insularity.
The controversy comes as the Israeli government and Diaspora Jewish
organizations have been viewed for this article suggested that the
abusive practices were more common in the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi
community, which is characterized by greater insularity. But sources
told the Forward that the pratice has recently been picked up by
other segments of the Orthodox world, including visiting American
yeshiva students.
The controversy comes as the Israeli government and Diaspora Jewish
organizations have been attempting to focus international attention
on what they describe as a surge in antisemitism across the globe.
Beyond potentially undermining these efforts, the reports of
anti-Christian harassment could weaken Israel’s claim to be an
effective guardian of Christian and Muslim rights in Jerusalem.
“Protection of everything sacred to other religions is one of the
justifications for Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem, whose
legitimacy will be undermined if this spitting becomes prevalent,”
said a former Israeli chief rabbi, Israel Meir Lau. Lau condemned the
harassment, and warned that such incidents could fuel antisemitism
outside of Israel.
Besides the Armenian rite, clergy of other Christian churches have
been targeted, Shirvanian said. “This is not happening only to
Armenian clergy, but also to the Catholics, Syrians, Romanians and
Greek Orthodox.”
Following the incident involving Manougian, numerous Israeli
government officials and Jewish religious and organizational leaders
have stepped forward to condemn the acts.
Interior Minister Avraham Poraz called the yeshiva students’ behavior
“intolerable,” and asked Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra to
“take all the necessary steps to prevent these incidents in the
future.”
The chairman of the Knesset’s Interior and Environment Committee,
Yuri Stern, said the incidents resulted from ignorance and stupidity.
He called for changes in how Christianity is taught in Israeli
schools.
Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupoliansky, the city’s first ultra-Orthodox
chief executive, announced that he would appoint an adviser to deal
with the problem of Jewish harassment of religious minorities in
Jerusalem and to provide recommendations to improve interfaith
relations in the city.
According to Shirvanian, church officials are frequently subjected to
spitting, from yeshiva students as well as from ultra-Orthodox women
and young children. He said ultra-Orthodox Jews also throw garbage on
church doorsteps and break windows at churches and at Christian
homes.
Daniel Rossing, a former adviser on Christian affairs at Israel’s
Religious Affairs Ministry, said there has been an increase in the
number of such incidents recently, “as part of a general atmosphere
of lack of tolerance in the country.”
“I know Christians who lock themselves indoors during the entire
Purim holiday” for fear of being attacked by Jews, said Rossing, now
the director of a Jerusalem center for Christian-Jewish dialogue.
A spate of recent incidents has been reported in the press:
– A few weeks ago, an elderly man wearing a yarmulke spat on a senior
Greek Orthodox cleric who was entering a government office in
Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul section.
– Stars of David were spray-painted on the entrance to the Monastery
of the Cross, not far from the Knesset. The Holy Trinity Russian
Orthodox Cathedral, near Jerusalem police headquarters in the
so-called Russian Compound in downtown Jerusalem, suffered similar
vandalism.
– Officials at a church located near several yeshivas complained that
the students were watching them through binoculars and making
offensive gestures when they passed by. Churches located in several
Orthodox neighborhoods in Jerusalem complained that neighbors had
thrown garbage into their yards.
The Armenian call for action comes several days after Manougian was
spat upon while leading a procession marking the Exaltation of the
Holy Cross near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City.
In response, Manougian slapped the yeshiva student, Natan Zvi
Rosenthal, 21, a resident of Beersheva. During the ensuing brawl
Manougian’s cross medallion, worn by Armenian archbishops since the
17th century, was damaged.
Police questioned both men. The Jerusalem District Court barred
Rosenthal from entering the Old City for 75 days.
Israel’s failure to impose a harsher penalty drew sharp criticism
from Manougian. “When there is an attack against Jews anywhere in the
world, the Israeli government is incensed,” the patriarch was quoted
as saying. “So why, when our religion and pride are hurt, don’t they
take harsher measures?”
Rosenthal later apologized to Manougian during a special meeting at
Jerusalem police headquarters late last week. In apologizing, he said
he had been raised to view Christianity as idol worship, which is
forbidden by the Torah.
Shirvanian later said the church had accepted Rosenthal’s apology, as
required by its religious tenets. “We had to forgive him in the
Christian spirit,” Shirvanian said, adding that the church now favors
canceling Rosenthal’s punishment.
On Sunday, Israel’s Knesset held an emergency meeting and launched an
investigation into the apparently rising level of assaults against
Christian clergy and churches.
But by then, the incident was reverberating throughout the world,
with more stories in the Israeli press of harassment and vandalism
directed by Orthodox Jews against several denominations.
Even as the Knesset’s Interior and Environment Committee was
interviewing Christian leaders and Jerusalem officials, a 6-year-old
Haredi boy spat on a young Armenian priest, Shirvanian told the
Forward.
In keeping with a long-standing approach, the church did not report
the second spitting incident to the police. “When a little boy and
little girl do this, they are being taught by their parents,”
Shirvanian said. “Shall we punish them? It’s more a matter of
educating them and educating the adults.”
The spitting on priests has been occurring “since the unification of
Jerusalem in 1967,” Shirvanian said.
Scholars contacted by the Forward cited several ancient rabbinic
sources as potential sources of anti-Christian attitudes.
At least one talmudic passage advises Jews to say pejorative things
when passing the homes or graves of idolators, and while most
rabbinic authorities have denied Christianity was intended, some
medieval commentators seem to suggest that some Jews viewed it that
way, presumably reflecting Jewish resentment of Christian
persecution.
Shirvanian said the Armenian church has generally “tried to ignore”
the spitting incidents. He said most Christians do not report the
incidents to the police because the authorities ignore them. “They
just take the reports and of course, they release the offenders.”
A Jerusalem police spokesman, Gil Kleiman, said that before the
recent altercation involving the Armenian patriarch, it had been two
years since the police handled a spitting incident.
Kleiman confirmed that Christian clergy complain the harassment is
frequent. But it took the attack on the Armenian leader to transform
the matter into a public issue and national embarrassment.
Shmuel Evyatar, a former adviser on Christian affairs to the mayor of
Jerusalem, called the situation “a huge disgrace,” adding that most
of the instigators are yeshiva students studying in the Old City who
view the Christian religion with disdain. “I’m sure the phenomenon
would end as soon as rabbis and well-known educator denounce it. In
practice, rabbis of yeshivas ignore or even encourage it,” he said.
Rabbis from the Har Hamor yeshiva said that Rosenthal was the first
student at their institution to be charged with such an offense. They
said that they educate their students to be courteous to others and
expressed regret over the spitting incident.
Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, the
leading advocacy organization of ultra-Orthodox Judaism here, said he
was unfamiliar with assaults on Christians and his organization has
no role to play in stopping the harassment.
“Were something of the sort to occur in the United States, our
rabbinic leadership would likely address the issue,” Shafran said.
“Since, though, the incident and the accusation of more widespread
abuse have taken place in Israel, our rabbis would leave any response
to the incident and to the demands of Armenian clergymen to the
rabbinic leaders in the Holy Land.”
Another American organization, the Anti-Defamation League, is
speaking out on the issue. The ADL sent a letter to Israel’s two
chief rabbis, urging them to take quick and forceful action.
Rabbi David Rosen, the Jerusalem-based international director of
interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, said his
Christian counterparts are “extremely upset” over the recent
incidents. At the same time, he added that “they are also content, in
a way, that the matter is now being taken seriously by the Israeli
authorities.”